Poetry | It’s changing / now


Futurity begins now with leftovers
sunglasses trying too hard
along with cheapskates
a kind of pink plastic essence

*

Destiny stinks!

*

What if we went crazy in the carpark
a scuffle on the grease

The green bag is torn
beside it, a line of ants
working
hidden in the glare

*

What now! The serious stuff
goes underground
That’s some claustrophobia

Above it the blue west
telling its bells

*

The way cars and feelings saunter

I’m watching too
though my mask interrupts

I fold like bark slouching
from the gum tree

*

The quickness of viruses stays true

*

The world has changed
It was changing this morning
It’s changing now
It was taller then
It’s thicker now

Birds hang from it in alarm

Clouds drift through its grey and white
as nightmares or questions

A river that wasn’t there before

*

Night’s in a rush
I hear it crushing the hills and networks

Without complaint the birds are gone
into wherever the gone goes

*

I wander from tides into walls

*

Every pebble, blade and splinter
moving the air

Inhuman touch makes me glad and scared

If things were holy
this may be it

*

Scrambling

*

I can’t keep up as water falls

 

Jill Jones

Jill Jones lives and works on unceded Kaurna land. Her latest book is Wild Curious Air, winner of the 2021 Wesley Michel Wright Prize. In 2015 she won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry for The Beautiful Anxiety. Her work is widely published in Australia, Canada, Ireland, NZ, Singapore, Sweden, UK, and USA and has been translated into a number of languages. She has worked as an academic, arts administrator, journalist, and book editor.

More by Jill Jones ›

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  1. I would try to find another way to describe (the feeling/sense of)Destiny. It is my feeling that poetry, even when expressing an attitude about Destiny, requires A not so blatant statement. Poetry is the biggest demander of our ability to express ourselves for both reading and engaging purpose.
    Other than that, I think the poet has captured the situation well

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